Payton & Buckle has solutions for frustrated shoe shoppers

If you have a hard time finding comfortable shoes, you know the feeling: you search every shoe store in every mall, you’ve shipped back online purchases.

You end up with an unsatisfying compromise of shoes that look okay and don’t fit, or that almost fit but look terrible. Why must it be so hard?

A lot of first-time customers arrive at Payton & Buckle Fine Footwear having looked absolutely everywhere else for shoes that fit. And they walk out with happy feet.

“That’s who we deal with,” said John Laanstra, Payton & Buckle’s owner. “We obviously get people with ‘normal’ feet, too. But people who have a hard time finding good shoes that fit will end up here.”

“Sit and fit” makes the difference

Payton & Buckle carries more brands than most other stores, and that means more sizing variety. But the key is the time the staff will spend with each customer to get the fit right.

“We are still a full service store,” Laanstra said. “Most stores are not anymore. With many of them, you’re lucky if there’s somebody there to help you, and that would only be to bring a box to you. We literally bring you the shoes. We literally have a conversation with you. It’s called ‘sit and fit’ because we actually sit with you and try to make it work for you.”

Laanstra said Payton & Buckle has a lot of success with the Vionic brand of shoes.

Vionic offers comfort and style

Seventy-five per cent of people pronate. This is when the arches begin to fall, causing heel and foot pain. But most people don’t know what causes the pain, all they know is they get sore feet. Vionic offers a patented technology inside their fashionable styles that make wearing Vionic a pleasure.

Vionic shoes are developed by a team of medical professionals and shoe designers to offer support and comfort. Their patented technologies, including their natural alignment technology and their “elevated support” approach to heels and wedges, have earned them a Seal of Acceptance from the American Podiatric Medicine Association.

Style doesn’t have to hurt!

“There is definitely a big Vionic following,” Laanstra said. “There’s a whole group of people who have been wearing them for years and they come in specifically asking for them.”

Why? Comfort, yes, Laanstra says. But Vionic shoes are known as much for their style as their support.

“What’s really nice about them is they don’t look like orthopedic shoes. But they are, in a sense, orthopedic shoes.”

He said the Vionic following keeps growing as more people discover them. “We’ve had them for quite a few years already, so for us it’s not a new product. But for a lot of customers it is, so we’re trying to help them understand what it is — and that we have them,” he said.